


Heaven's Just a Sin Away

by executrix



Category: Firefly
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-14
Updated: 2011-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:18:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a mega-church Shepherd meets a surgeon, their attraction is far from simple. There's Rev. Reynolds' wife to worry about, for one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven's Just a Sin Away

**Author's Note:**

> Section heads come from Steve and Pam Paulson, _Church Signs Across America_ (Overlook Press 2006), http://www.crummychurchsigns.com and http://www.churchsigngenerator.com.

_But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you  
And loved the sorrows of your changing face._

1\. _Be The Change You Want To See In People_  
"So, you like critters, huh?" said the tall handsome man holding a glass of tomato juice in one hand and a ten-gallon hat in the other. His huge belt buckle could have proclaimed him a rodeo champion, except that it had a cross in the middle.

"Not particularly," Dr. Tam said, once he deciphered what the man was talking about. He usually didn't drink at lunch, but was contemplating a second gin and tonic, because it was either that or snort elephant tranquilizer.

"Oh. Crazy about 'em myself, but the Lord ain't blessed Saffron Faye an' me with any anklebiters. Why're you here, then?" he asked. He slugged down the last of the tomato juice, looked around for somewhere to put it (a cater-waiter materialized just in time), shifted his hat, and put out his hand. "Malcolm C. Reynolds. I'm…"

"The pastor of the Quartz Cathedral. I know." It was one of the biggest buildings on Lilac, and certainly the most transparent. "I'm a surgeon," Simon said, a statement that had been unqualifiedly true for a full three months. "And, since the children's cranio-facial repair unit comes under the jurisdiction of the Faculty of Surgery, I'm here to accept that grotesque imitation of a check on behalf of the hospital." Simon was the junior surgeon, which meant that he had the longest calendar of the worst cases, but also meant that he was in no position to turn down pain-in-the-ass assignments like this one. "I take it that you're here to present it to me."

"Wasn't us raised all that money, not by a long chalk, but bein' charitable, that's our way."

"Gentlemen," said a thin, anxious-looking ash-blonde party planner with an overbite. "If you could take the dais, please…"

Dr. Tam took a deep breath, inhaled the last of his gin and tonic until an ice cube clanked on his front teeth, and held out the glass, in the sure and certain hope that someone would take it.

The cheerful clatter of knife and fork ceased as Reverend Reynolds crossed the utensils on his cleaned plate. "Now, that there was enjoyable. Saffron Faye does this thing with chicken legs and lemonade and crushed cornflakes, that's **special** , but this was real nice."

Dr. Tam, glad for the excuse to stop pushing around bits of food with his chopsticks, stared aghast.

"Well, son, y'ever been real hungry for a real long time, it changes the way you feel about the blessings the Lord gives you later on."

Dr. Tam flinched, blushed a little, and startled to apologize, but Senator Tsien was already droning about Buddheo-Christian Values, and then it was the photo opportunity with some very small children with severe craniofacial deformities posed in front of the gigantic replica check.

2\. _Our Church is Prayer-Conditioned. 2,500 Years Under Same Management._  
"We're workin' on it, Rev," Kaylee said, continuing to scrawl on her clipboard, not even turning around.

"I didn't even get to say nothin'!" Mal said. "How'd you know it was me?"

"Sounds is my profession, Rev. Everybody walks just a little differently, and I can always tell when it's you comin' up. Ya got a sorta bounce. Real confident. Mr. Cobb, now, he more sorta slinks, which come to think of it is kinda surprisin' for such a big man."

"We gonna be back up in time for the sunrise service on Sunday?"

"Dunno, we're havin' some awful trouble gettin' all the codecs to play nice. It was addin' the transliterated text feed to Jiangyin that was the straw that broke the camel's back…"

"Folks depend on us, Kaylee," Mal said. "Out there on the Rim, maybe don't see a Shepherd in the flesh from one year to the next. Half the time they don't even got a reliable Cortex connection. Maybe they don't even got Bibles to read, even if they didn't want a congregation to worship in or a sermon to edify 'em."

"We'll git 'er done, Rev. Don't you fret," Kaylee said, thinking {{Shut the front door! If it's fixin' the HVAC so folks don't boil to death or fixin' a live transmission they'll get on chip a month later anyway…}}

"'Course not," Mal said. "Can't stop the Lord's Word. And remember, money's no object."

3\. _Don't Give Up! Moses Was Once A Basket Case!_  
Simon reached up to the second shelf of the bookcase, where there was a basket filled with the datacubes from all his University courses. He took down the basket and rummaged around until he found the one from Comparative Religion. That was the same semester as Organic Chemistry 3, known to be a bear, and the last semester he could fulfill his graduation requirements in Humanities, so he had every reason to look for a gut course.

A couple of years later, he queried the origin of the term, because he didn't think his GI rotation was easy at all.

4\. _Don't Wait for Six Strong Men to Take You to Church_  
Simon decided that he had just enough time before Accidents & Occurrences round for a quick sandwich in the cafeteria. He rinsed out his personal coffee mug (he was addicted to the coffee, despite its vile taste and homeopathic caffeine content), for which Maureen at the checkout line always charged him for four cups of coffee, which he always felt was unfair given the reduced labor and environmental effects of bringing his own mug.

"Dr. Tam?" LaVendra on the cafeteria line said as she handed him a cheese sandwich and a cup of rust-colored broth. "It's Outreach Week at my church," she said. "The Quartz Cathedral. You've heard of it?"

"Yes," he said, and left it at that, omitting references to "Take a Heathen to Church Week" because LaVendra sometimes put leftover sandwiches in the house officer's locker room when the cafeteria closed at 7:30, and they really came into their own at the peak of cardboardy goodness around 3 a.m. "I've met the minister," he said. "They gave us—the hospital—some money for the kids' facial surgery unit."

LaVendra's face lit up. "He's real soul-stirrin'," she said. "Won't you please come along this Sunday?"

"I'm….uh…all right, I will," he said, figuring that something was bound to demand the junior surgeon's attention on the Sabbath, and then instantly feeling guilty about wishing mutilation and a near-death experience on some hypothetical stranger just to get Simon out of the end of the sermon.

5\. _Read the Bible. It'll Scare the Hell Out of You._  
Simon had the hovercab wait at the curb (it took an extra tip over and above what it took to induce transportation to LaVendra's neighborhood anyway). LaVendra was waiting in her apartment building's vestibule. She was delighted by the wrist corsage of orange mums that Simon gave her, even though it clashed with her church dress (red-and-white stripes, with a sailor middy) and church hat (crocheted thick straw with a red-and-white striped ribbon). The taxi driver perked up a little at the prospect of driving into the center of town, where new passengers could be expected.

As they joined the congregation filing tidily through the huge doors, LaVendra flashed her badge and asked for a visitor's pass for Simon. The cheery-looking girl with the clipboard and the headphones asked Simon if he had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Personal Savior. He blurted, "Oh, God, no" then stopped talking before it got any worse.

Simon heard the labored cough of the cathedral's air conditioning, and was glad that his charitable impulse had not occurred during the summer. The cathedral was laid out like an equal-armed cross (like the one Simon was familiar with as the sign of the Interplanetary Red Cross), with the pulpit in the middle. LaVendra whispered that normally she was entitled to sit in the Violet section, fairly close to the pulpit, but this week she would accompany him to the Visitor's section. {{Sheep and goats}} he thought. {{But mostly sheep.}}

Not only were the curtain walls and roof made of glass or something like it, so were the pews (Simon thought the view of backs and compressed asses was disconcertingly x-ray like). The floors were made of thick glass blocks, molded with ridges so the place wouldn't be an ice rink.

The organ rumbled, the choir sang a rabble-rouser, the cameras swung to the pulpit, and Reverend Reynolds climbed the stairs, put his notes on the lectern, and touched his fingers to the huge Bible propped up next to him. He wore a plain dark suit, a cortex-blue shirt that flattered his eyes, and a Veterans of Interplanetary Wars tie. Simon thought he looked very handsome.

"My sermon this week is about the Re-Rapture and how to prepare. As we all know, the promises of the Revelation came true on Earth that Was. The Elect were raptured, and now they live in Heaven with our Holy Father. But that left all the run of the mill folks, the everyday sinner in the street. They had been bad stewards of the Earth that the Lord gave 'em. Used it all up. Ran it into the ground. But God gave 'em another chance, by makin' seventy more Earths fit for their use. That's 'cause he said he'd forgive unto seventy times seven. So here we are, us an' our brothers on the other planets. But in return, He took somethin' back. He kept us livin' in End Times. Only this time, it's borrowed End Time. He could come back, in all his awful Glory, at any time. And when he comes, will you be ready to stand before Him? Can you say that your body and your heart were clean, that you spent your life doin' right? That he give you a second chance, and you didn't throw it back in His face? It's hard for us, brothers and sisters. We don't come from the sanctified stock. We come from the folks that weren't good enough for God to call home the first time. We have to honor our fathers and mothers, but we have to be better than them."

LaVendra gazed at Simon hopefully during the Altar Call ("Be an organ donor!" Reverend Reynolds urged. "Give your heart to Jesus!"), but there was only so much Simon was prepared to do. At the Pax, LaVendra kissed Simon's cheek. He shook her hand. "C'mon," she said. "They're doing the tour now." They took the escalator (the transparent treads kicked his vertigo into gear) down to the lobby, where a group of staffers greeted the small VIP tour group. Simon looked at the gigantic holo flashing over some of the largest windows near the portal. "He looks…very spiritual," he said of the older man in the holo, his lacy surplice contrasting with his caramel skin.

"That's our founder, Shepherd Derrial Book," Mal said, remembering to be reverent about him. "Built this church up from nothin' near to what it is now," he said. "My mentor, you might call him. Well, him an' my father-in-law. My mama was a good Christian, brought me up right, but I lost my faith during the War, y'see. I was driftin' around not up to much of anythin' 'till I fetched up on Triumph. Got a job on a ranch, sorta like to the one my Mama had on Shadow, 'cept this time I was just one of the hands, workin' to put money in another man's pocket. So that hurt my heart, but just bein' out on the land helped heal me. And then the Lord Jesus came into my heart, and Elder Gommen baptized me. Saffron Faye's his daughter."

"When did he die?" Simon asked, "Uhhh… Shepherd Book, that is," because he had a pretty good fix on when Jesus died and didn't particularly care if or when Elder Gommen did.

"Oh, Shepherd Book's just fine," Mal said. "We get a wave from him every now and again, at Christmas at least. We got mandatory retirement at sixty-five, and when he got up there, he took himself off to an Abbey to undertake the contemplative life. He was a celibate…" (Mal managed to make it sound dubious at the very least) "so he didn't have a family to worry about. 'Course, I think that a married man can be a better pastor, 'cause he understands the trials of family living. And that's how most of our congregation feels about the matter. And, right on cue, here comes my lovely bride now."

Simon clicked his heels marginally and bent from the waist to kiss her hand, which meant he nearly fell into her (freckled) cleavage. Her water-color flowered voile dress was almost ankle-length, but the elasticized neck was low, a combination that led Simon to a differential diagnosis of piano legs. Saffron Faye was accompanied by a tall woman (she reminded Simon a little of Inara; calm flowed off both of them in waves) dressed in clericals.

Yet another staffer came up to greet the tour group. Simon did not like baleful glares from men who were large enough to perform a hemicorporectomy without requiring a scalpel. Jayne Cobb liked small, pretty things only if they were petits fours. (Even when it came to women, he preferred something you could sink your teeth into.) Consequently, it could not be said that their initial encounter was a great success.

"Ah, I see," Simon said, when they were introduced. "The head of Security. No doubt recruited during your prison ministry, Reverend Reynolds."

"I'm the CFO," Jayne said, and Simon, too late, took in the twelve-hundred-credit suit. "Jayne Cobb, Gates School of Business, MBA, CPA. Place like this, takes some runnin'."

"Oh," Simon said, hoping to regain possession of his hand without major crush injuries (and of his mouth without major foot-induced injuries). "I'm glad to meet you. I went to U. of Osiris too."

"Tam…" Jayne said, reading the visitor's badge, "Would that be **Simon** Tam?"  
"Why, yes," Simon said cautiously, knowing that denying it three times wouldn't help his case.

"Yeah, my kid brother Matty was at the B-School…family tradition, y'know…their terms start and end a month later than the MedAcad. And he said that he was up real late one night, studyin' for his Managerial Controls exam, when there was this ruckus out in the courtyard. A whole herd o' nekkid surgeons clamberin' over the statue of Hippocrates. Says if Mavourneen was outta law school a'ready he'd a sued for emotional injuries."

"Really?" Saffron Faye said. "Did your brother call the Fed?"

Jayne, pleased to have the floor for once, said, "Naw. There was no Fed till…"

"I started singing," Simon said. He pantomimed pressing a callcode on his pager. "Elise, cancel my cases for the rest of the week, I crawled into a hole and died." LaVendra giggled and then tried to look solemn.

"Well, now, if that ain't a highly moral tale about the evils of sake," Mal said. He clapped Simon on the back. "It's the things like that that makes us humble, son. We ain't none of us perfect, and 'cept for deadly sins that'll get ya consigned to an eternity of Hellfire, sure as blinkin', we just gotta learn from them and move on forward."

"Oh, Dr. Tam, you're blushing!" LaVendra said.

"He looks better in red," Saffron Faye said.

6\. _Forbidden Fruit Creates Many Jams_  
At three a.m., Mal returned the pool car to the garage and, putting one foot before the other with exaggerated precision, he put the car keys back in the key safe. Then he returned to the car and, spitting on his handkerchief, tried to clean the license plate of the mud he had smeared over it to obscure the plate numbers. That didn't work very well, so he ended up pushing at the handkerchief and then chipping at the mud with his own bunch of keys.

He slid down to the floor of the garage, his legs splayed in front of him, and he thought about kneeling to pray but kneeling made him think of too many dark and bad and dirty things. He wasn't sure if he was sobbing or hiccupping and the cold of the concrete floor soaked up through his pants.

He was back safe again, he hadn't been beaten or knifed. He hadn't been robbed—his wallet was lighter only by a sum that he thought was modest for the degradation of one person, let alone two. And, although he dreaded blackmail, he was always a little disappointed when there wasn't so much as a flash of recognition in the eyes of his temporary partner in crime.

"Lord, why won't you let this cup pass from me? I've prayed, and I've tried, and over and over I've stumbled and fallen…"

7\. _Lord, Keep Your Arm Around My Shoulder and Your Hand Across My Mouth_  
Simon leaned back against the edge of his desk and waited for his anxious-looking patient to get to the point, which did not seem to have anything to do with surgery.

"Well, of course the Lord ain't blessed us, he's hardly had the chance…She can't be havin' her lady's time **all** the time, now can she?"

"Well, you could try having her touch the hem of your robe and see if the virtue goes out of you…sorry. Reverend Reynolds, no physician can answer one patient's questions about someone else who isn't even a patient. However, what I can do is refer your wife to an excellent gynecologist, or arrange for a fertility workup for both of you if you're concerned about trouble conceiving."

"Yeah, that's…oh, heck, I don't know why I even bother," Mal said, horrified but unable to turn off his mouth. "What kind of a home would it be to bring a kid into, anyway?"

"Reverend Reynolds, if you're so unhappy, and you've made a reasonable effort…"

"I've taken it to the Lord in prayer, many a time," Mal said. "And before Shepherd Book's retirement, he counseled us lots of times, although how he'd know beans about marriage beats me all to heck..."

"…Then perhaps you should {{lose a hundred and three pounds of ugly fat}} consider whether your marriage has broken down…"

"That simply isn't an option," Mal said. "Our Lord Jesus Christ said that a man must not put his wife aside, except for adultery."

{{Guess you'd better pray for adultery, then}}.

"Reverend Reynolds, I can't help noticing that your church is affiliated with a number of health facilities, and I'm sure that you have excellent insurance coverage. So the fact that you have sought out a physician outside this system, who doesn't have any of your records, strikes me as evidence that you have a concern that you don't want anyone else to know about. Oh, and that next to your comm number is scrawled, 'Private number! Do not call the switchboard!' also piqued my interest."

"Scrawled!" Mal said. "A doctor's got some nerve accusin' me of that!"

Simon smiled to himself and tried to keep his face impassive. Dr. Bell's Reader-like demonstrations in Clinical Diagnosis 204 paid off yet again. "The fact that you've been staring at my crotch for the past ten minutes also appears to be significant." (Now that he was no longer a house officer, Simon wore a starched white jacket over suit pants, a shirt and tie. Without his familiar long white coat, he felt half-naked.)

"I…now, that's plainly and purely not true…I'm just, y'know, embarrassed to talk about personal things, so I guess I been lookin' down at the floor."

"No, the floor is down there," Simon said. "I may not know my ass from my elbow, but this is one area where confusion really isn't practical. All right. Roll up your sleeve and give me your hand."

"Huh? Whah?"

"I'll take a blood sample and run a complete STD panel. I can have the results for you in a few minutes. In case of a positive result, depending on the nature of the infection, I may be able to give you a prescription or refer you for further treatment. If you've dodged the bullet this time, then I can reinforce your understanding of preventive procedures for the future."

"It's never going to happen again," Mal said fervently.

"That's what everyone always says," Simon said. "As, I'm sure, is also true in your line of work. But the difference between our occupations is that I'm not concerned about the morality of anyone's sex life. On a practical level, I would have to urge you to engage the services of a proper Companion if you would like to engage in…ah…informal relations without fear of violence or disease. Your safety—and the safety of others—will be assured, and you will be able to rely on absolute discretion. As well as a professional quality of services, of course."

"Tarnation if you don't sound like you think that consortin' with one of those high-flown Companions is a pleasant thing."

"Oh, of course," Simon said, shutting his mouth just in time to avoid saying that he had always found it quite relaxing and enjoyable. It would hardly advance the argument for discretion if he were to go about gossiping about the Companions and apprentices of House Madrasa. "It's a respected institution, because so many people want a venue in which someone will attend absolutely to their preferences and their comfort."

"That's all just whitewash on the rotting tomb!" Mal said. "If a man is gonna defile himself with a filthy whore, least he can do is take his life into his hands!"

They both jumped at the sound of the timer on the diagnostic computer. Simon ripped the printout from the machine. "All the tests are negative," he said. Mal breathed a sigh of relief and worked on converting it to one of disappointment at the injustice, even if he were the beneficiary of it. Then Mal gave a significant glance at his watch and headed for the rack where his Stetson was parked.

"Yes," Simon said. "I have an appointment, too."

8\. _Life is Like Tennis: Start From Love. Serve The Best You Can._  
"You're on edge today," Inara said, shifting back to offer a full-body caress to her client. He sighed and clasped her shoulders and sank his head down against her shoulder. Simon had been a client since he turned twenty-one and started collecting income from Uncle Jerome's trust. Inara liked him because he preferred the unpopular 2-4 afternoon time slot, and because he gave very nice presents on Doll Day, although she suspected that he sent his secretary out to choose them.

Her current apprentice, Julian, said that he was fun (if in a bit of a rush) and played pinochle better than you'd expect from a rich guy. Julian considered pinochle was a pretty declasse game. (And so did Simon, but it was River's favorite.)

"Tresses!" Simon said, twining one of hers around his fingers. "Why doesn't everybody have tresses? They're so lovely. You're so lovely."

"You're avoiding the subject," Inara said.

Simon sighed. "Well, I'm…angry about something a patient said. Or a lot of things a patient didn't. Why can't…oh, never mind. I can't talk about it."

"Is your sister all right? I know you've been worried about her."

"I can't…I don't know if she isn't…her letters just keep getting stranger and stranger, and when I try to contact her at the codes on the brochure they just fob me off with ridiculous excuses…"

"Perhaps it will reduce the generosity of my present next Doll Day, but I can recommend a good private investigator," Inara said.

"Thank you!" Simon said, sliding his hands slowly down her arms, reluctantly preparing to liaise with mundane reality again. He placed the highest credence in recommendations from people he thought were in contact with the elite of whatever profession.

9\. _Tithe If You Love Jesus! Anyone Can Honk!_  
"'A reliable unnamed source close to the investigation, huh?" Hoban Washburne said, slipping the chilled copper mug underneath his moustache and savoring his Moscow Mule. "I like the sound of that…" he closed the menu. "The Unnamed Source will have the buffalo tenderloin with gorgonzola sauce, medium-well, with creamed…no, make that sauteed…spinach. Bring around the dessert cart when I prove I qualify for the Clean Plate Club. And another Mule while I'm waiting, please."

"Oi! My budget's not what you'd call unlimited," said Nicodemus Pumblechook, star and producer of "The Badger's Sett," the popular, well, popular-ish, or at least canceled only occasionally per season, muckraking corticast.

"Which is why, instead of wasting time and trouble sending you invoices for a reasonable fee which you will then omit to pay, I will help you gorge and guzzle in expensive restaurants to make up for getting stiffed on most of my bills. But, just so you won't feel guilty about deducting this little rendezvous…what's it about?"

"The Quartz Cathedral," Badger said. "Gotta be a story there. All those Prayer Partners shoveling out dosh for autographed Bibles and whatnot. How much money changes hands in that Den of Prayer? Where does it go? Who gets their fingers in the collection plate? Who gets their fingers in the choirboys?"

"I can tell you right now, that dog won't hunt," Wash said. "The choir…well, they're all ladies of a certain age and a certain size." (Although it would take scopolamine to pry it out, Wash liked gospel music.)

10\. _Take Your Troubles To God. He's Up All Night Anyway._  
One of the privileges of being a fully licensed surgeon was being able to go home and sleep in one's own bed (or indeed any other bed of choice, rather than having to stay in the hospital). The downside was the extra time it took to get to the hospital after being summoned in an emergency.

When the pager shrieked, Simon automatically noted the glowing figures on the bedside clock (4:23 am). "Dr. Tam, Trauma Surgery," he said.

"I just wanna…I just wan' you to know…I wanna tellya, that I'm not your patient any more," said a drunkdialed baritone. "In terms of. About, y'know, your perfusional ethics. Professional."

Halfway through Simon's "Who is this?" the line went dead. After a few yawns and a cup of coffee (his test of being awake was ability to operate the espresso machine), he had a pretty good idea who it was.

11\. _To Keep the Faith, Give It Away_  
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," Simon said.

Wash looked around the claustrophobic office. Just about everything except the silver-framed capture on the desk was covered with folders full of paper printouts, books, and datacubes.

"Wait a minute…" Simon said. "I've just, just seen you recently. I know! You were in the tour group at the Quartz Cathedral!"

"Uh…yeah. Mega-churches are an, ummm, an interesting social phenomenon, and I just wanted to get a, you know, see how the other half lives…Now, about what you want me to find out?"

Simon yawned, triggered the capture, and turned it to face Wash. "It's my beautiful sister!" he blurted. Wash looked hard at the picture, shrugging to himself that he couldn't find the beauty in the girl's round face, partially hidden by wavy mud-colored hair. Her odd grin was echoed by the mischief in her shoe-button eyes.

"She's been away at school for two years. That's two solid years. She never comes home for holidays. I can't reach her by comm or cortex. I write letters to her, but I don't know if they reach her. I haven't gotten a letter from her in months, and the letters I did get were…strange. Encoded, I think. I'll give you copies and you can see if you agree with me."

Going just by the capture, Wash thought that The Academy was about right, but the Laughing was silent. That, or reform school.

"I think what she's trying to tell me is that she's in danger. I'd do anything to help her if that's the case, but what can I do if I don't even know where she is?"

Wash took out his handcom and got ready to input. "Okay. Your parents still alive? Uh, she's your full sister, right? Not half?"

"Not half. And, yes, our parents are alive, but…I don't want you to contact them. Of course I went to them first when I started being worried about River. But they assure me that everything is all right, that there's nothing to worry about. I…I tried to ask some questions myself, and I ended up getting caught in a Blackout Zone. My father had to bribe my way out. He…he made it very clear that he had come to the end of his tether. So leave them out of it." Simon reached for his checkbook, and Wash took the hint and daringly opened the bidding by quoting an exorbitant fee.

"That's per day, right?" Simon said. "Here, this is for five days and expenses, get back to me when it runs out and give me an interim report."

12\. _Feeling Ugly? How About a Faith Lift?_  
They had progressed from being awkward in one another's company and storming out of coffee shops after ridiculous arguments to doing the same in restaurants of ever-increasing star rating to taking the same heading in Simon's apartment. Simon, perhaps seeing the glass as half-empty, did not consider this an adequate rate of progress. He wanted to pick up a small expensive object and throw it, although he knew that if he threw it at Mal he would be truly sorry and if he threw it at the wall he would just be destroying a piece of his own property and if it broke he'd just have to clean it up before the cleaning service got there and someone could get hurt.

Mal took the mosaic lid off a sandalwood box, unwrapped one of the candies inside, and did a double-take. "What **are** these things?"

"Caramels," Simon said, helping himself to a couple and imagining that he could see electricity arcing between their fingers.

"Yeah, but what's the gray stuff on top?"

"Sea salt," Simon said, around the candies. "It's to balance the flavor. Keep them from being insipid."

"Huh. Seems like a waste of good butter." Mal tried to re-wrap the candy and couldn't figure out what to do with it; Simon grimaced and impatiently held out his hand. Mal dropped the caramel into his palm.

"Hey, how's the thingy-o-face unit goin'?"

"It's a microcosm" Simon said. "Those children whose facial repairs we do at the Unit? Some of them were born that way, and just tell me who or what is served by a baby being born with a hideous deformity. Maybe one that means he can't even suck. Some of them were hurt in accidents. Which at least there could be some forgiveness for. And some of them…their parents did it, because they spilled a glass of milk or wet the bed. Or their pimps, because they didn't earn enough."

Simon's bitterness wrung Mal's heart, and Mal wanted desperately to cheer him up. "I heard…" Mal said. "Uh, I guess I overheard. I was gettin' ready to deliver the main Sunday sermon, and I walked past the Canaan room—that's where the kids are, for Sunday school. And Zo'—that's our youth minister—was talkin' to the kids about God's holy plan for each and every one of us. Sayin' that sometimes it's hard to understand what He wants for us, but it don't do no good to issue Him marching orders. I ain't ready to give up on the Lord yet. He's been a faithful God and he's favored me. All that stuff you said…well, I can't say it's untrue, but God made the butterflies just like he made the toads. Maybe what He likes is lots of different stuff. And, hey, I guess just 'cause a toad looks ugly to us don't mean it looks ugly to another toad. Heck, 'less they're powerful unhappy all the time, one toad must look pretty shiny to another one."

"Do you want to experiment?" Simon asked. "If I kiss a handsome prince, will **I** turn into a toad?"

"Don't conjure we'd be havin' these Chautauqua discussions at all if we were a couple of double-baggers," Mal said. "It kinda makes it hard to keep away, you lookin' like you do an' all. But that's not all of why."

"No," Simon said. "Nor for me." He abruptly swallowed the remains of the caramels as Mal lurched at him in a crash of teeth. Simon rested his hands on Mal's back, where the muscles spread out like a noble folio on a lectern, and worked very hard on remembering what it felt like because he knew there was a very good chance that was all he was ever going to get.

A few minutes later, Mal, his face contorted with grief, broke away and fled.

13\. _If You Give Satan An Inch, It Makes Him Your Ruler._  
"Well, all I can say is, it's not there," Wash told Simon. "Unless you had some reason for paying me to lie to me about it, you really did put your sister on the shuttle to Lilac."

"Not the shuttle," Simon said. "Her friend Madison's family had their own ship, just a small private one, so both girls went to the Academy together. They both had so much luggage…well, Madison's was all clothes and make-up, River's was her microscope and her telescope and her art supplies and her toe shoes—there was only one maker that she liked, and he was very old, so she ordered three dozen pairs…sorry, I'm driveling."

"And as far as I can tell, there is no government-sponsored Academy like you described anywhere on Lilac. And in fact there isn't even anyplace called something else that could **be** the Academy, not with the kind of facilities you described. I checked MapTex, I checked the shuttle photographs, I checked the real estate plats, and I checked the building permits. Ummm, not to be critical here, but, well, you just let your sister head off without even checking to see if the place exists—well, it probably exists, your sister has to be **someplace** {{If}} he amended {{you didn't make her up in the first place, my squirrelly yet lucrative friend. Or if she used to be alive, but now, not so much.}}—but you didn't check to see it was on the same planet as it was supposed to be on?"

"I…look, you have to have faith in the way the world works!" Simon said. "It, it just wasn't any, any fly-by-night! It was…or at least they said it was…the government."

"Oh, well," Wash said, gazing pointedly upward where some public or private entity might have installed a surveillance device. "That covers a multitude of sins, doesn't it?"

14\. _Long-Standing Problems? Try Kneeling_  
"I can't make you come here, of course," Julian said. "But it's not just my wallet talking here, Simon. I like you. I don't want you to be unhappy. Those screwed-up married men who don't know what they want…well, it's just a recipe for disaster."

"I never said he was married!"

"But he is, isn't he?"

"After a fashion."

"See!" Julian said.

"I'm sure you're right," Simon said, and kissed him on the cheek.

"I guess I should turn the other one," Julian said.

"Tempting, but…no," Simon said, and put on his scarf and coat and left. Without so much as a few relaxing hands of pinochle.

15\. _Church Is a Gift From God: Assembly Required_  
"Reverend Alleyne-Tillson!" Wash said urgently, panting from running behind her and trying to get her whole name out in a breath. "Would you care to accompany me for a sociable beverage?"

"All right," she said with a slow smile.

A few minutes later, the waitress in the Crystal Spa, recognizing Zoe, slipped them to the head of the line, and within a quarter of an hour, they had been served.

"See, I knew right away you were up to no good," Zoe said. "When I ordered the extra scoop in my root beer float, and you didn't bat an eye."

Wash made a show of batting resentfully at his banana split, but actually he liked banana splits and he was going to present an invoice for the whole thing as a source interview anyway.

"So, what's your job at the Cathedral?" he asked. "I can tell, the clerical collar and all…" (she wore a black clerical shirt beneath a black pants suit, although there was a touch of frivolity in the coral toenails peeping through her high-heeled sandals) "…that you're a Shepherd."

"Youth minister," she said, a world of frustration in the two words. "Sometimes it's interesting, y'know, when some of the smart kids go through their Village Atheist phase. Mostly, though…"

"Wacky fun! You can, you know, have amusing puppet plays…" He picked up one of the big blue paper napkins, folded it swiftly, and flapped the newly-made puppet's mouth. "'Judas, curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!'"

Zoe snorted. Wash propped his chin on his hand and gazed at her, enthralled. He had never before recognized the erotic potential of snorting. "Guess I better get home and see if the kids did their homework and their chores."

"Uh… I guess your husband gets home too late to do that."

This time, Zoe glared at the transparency of the gambit and the obviousness of his gaze at the thin, worn gold band on her finger. "War widow. Six years back. Mostly I miss him because the kids need him. Charley's fourteen, Danitra's twelve. Things between him and me…well, maybe that's one reason why he was so eager to go to war. Why men are. It's the kids who want to do right who get into the worst messes, y'know. I swore to my Daddy when I was fifteen that I'd stay pure 'till I got married. He passed that year, so I had to keep my word—I'd never be able to apologize for lettin' him down, this side of the Veil. Charles was real churchy too. So, soon's we started feelin' those stirrings, we up and married the first person that would give us the time of day. "

"I assure you that you have nothing to worry about," Wash said. "You can trust me not to commit matrimony, but I am certain that, given your general gorgeousness and formidability, I can provide you will all…half…ten percent of all the completely meaningless sex you might ever wish for."

Rev. Alleyne-Tillson raised one nicely manicured fingertip (matching coral). "I'm working to change the teachings of the Church—which I will abide by until that time. Speaking of which, I promised the kids they could multicorticate tonight. Only way I can supervise their Cortex time is to play those dumb games with 'em."

"What game?" Wash asked eagerly.

"Chevaliers of Earth-that-Was," Zoe said.

"I'll have you know that I'm a Level Fifteen Dwarf with Bardic powers," Wash said.

Zoe snorted. This time, as the snortee, he found it a little less attractive. "The kids'll love that," she said. "It'll make 'em nostalgic for bein' ten."

16\. _Be Humbly Grateful, Not Grumbly Hateful_  
"Do you know how old I am?" Simon said, a trifle pettishly. He very nearly had faith that Mal wouldn't put his lizard-trimmed boots up on the new sofa, and his near-faith was rewarded.

"Never thought on it," Mal said. "Me, I'm thirty-two."

"I know," Simon said. "It's on your chart. I've been twenty-six for six weeks. So there was…for a month and a half…I was twenty-five and a surgeon. Not a scut puppy, not a houseman, not a post-doc fellow. I was…am…allowed to take a scalpel or a drill or a rongeur to bodies, to living breathing bodies, just on my own say-so with no supervision. And that frightens me. Well, I hope it always frightens me a little, because it's a matter of…awe."

"There was a doctor on Earth-that-Was," Mal said. "Y'know what he said? 'I dressed the wound, God healed him.' Ya gotta know who's the awesome one in the equation, son."

Simon flinched at the last word. "I'd prefer you didn't call me that considering what…what we're contemplating doing."

"Point taken," Mal said. " _Simon._." He shook his head. "I don't foresee anythin' but sin and trouble, but I don't know if I can pull myself back from the brink."

"Me neither," Simon said. "That is, neither can I…imagine that. Or stop. But despite the…guarded prognosis, I feel very much drawn to you. Because you're…there's a reality to you. You're substantial. It's not what I believe in, but you believe in **something**."

"I think we both want, that we need, the same thing," Mal said. "A true friend."

Simon, touched, just nodded. "All my life, I was always rushed along, until I was old enough to run myself. I was always the youngest…and the smallest…so mostly the world was about hostile large people dropping things on my head. Well, I could be a hundred and I'd still be short."

"Y'wanna feel sorry for yourself? Because I can introduce you to some folks that would really be entitled to, they didn't have high hearts to keep their spirits up."

"Call and raise, Mal, I work in a hospital…But what I mean to say is, except for River…my sister…I don't understand people. I care about them, I want them to be all right, not to be in pain, and sometimes I can do that…but I can't get close to them."

"All right," Mal said abruptly, standing up and trying to figure out which way the bedroom was. "Let's get 'er done."

It wasn't quite the way Simon would have phrased it, but he agreed with the value of, as it were, getting over the hump, so he put his arm around Mal's shoulder and torqued him in the right direction.

"Awful bright in here," Mal said, squinting at the expensive window treatments that filtered the afternoon sun.

Simon sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes and socks. "You're worth looking at," he said. The amenities available included a blindfold, but Simon didn't think it was a good time to point that out. By the time he turned around, Mal was down to his underwear and socks, so Simon took off his own trousers and unbuttoned a few shirt buttons. He lifted the corner of the coverlet and the sheet beneath it. "Here," he said. "Let's get in. It'll be like a tent. Where we'll feel safe."

Mal found himself flat on his back, with Simon straddling him. It wasn't the way he had imagined the thing would play out. There were so many body parts where he could feel their syncopated heartbeats that Mal thought he was in a cuckoo-clock showroom.

After a feathery, then fiery, kiss with his hands clasping Mal's face, Simon leaned back and ran his hands over Mal's chest. Mal slid a hand under Simon's shirt. "Them things silk?" he asked, something puritanically.

In a move toward greater inequality, or maybe just toppling over, Simon landed on his side, and Mal grabbed him and started a round of urgent kissing and shirt-unbuttoning. Simon broke away and licked at the band of skin where Mal's undershirt had rucked up, then nibbled his way upward until he could lift off the now roman-shaded shirt. He paused for a moment, his head resting on Mal's shoulder, just glazed and dazed and happy to be there at last.

17\. _The Ability to Lie is a Liability_  
Mint-juleped, lunched, pleasured, napped, and generally at peace with the world, Jayne yawned, stretched, sat up, and started quartering the room to figure out where his underwear ended up this time. "You're a helluva woman, Saffron Faye," he said.

"Well, at least when we're there, we'll get away from these fucking Bible-punchers," she said. She was already showered and dressed, and she sat at the curlicued white wicker desk sorting out credit-card bills.

"God hates a hypocrite," Jayne said. "So they'll be right in line for the barbecue. Hey, that's prolly what'll happen to them. Gettin' et forever by pigs."

Saffron Faye, shuddering at this unexpected touch of poetry in her paramour's soul, said, "Jayne, you'd better get back to the office in case Mal wanders in to ask about his bank balance."

He felt a little resentful that as soon as she got her greens, she couldn't stand the sight of him until the next time she got randy. "Conjure he's playin' Get Thee Behind Me Satan with that prettyboy right now," Jayne said.

"Which one?"

"The doc. Y'know, the one he got all goosey for when we gave 'em that money for fixin' up kids' faces."

Saffron Faye shook her head. "Doesn't ring a bell."

18\. _Coincidence Is Just God Remaining Anonymous_  
Wash whistled, seeing his two seemingly unrelated cases become one as Reverend Reynolds of the Quartz Cathedral entered Dr. Tam's apartment—he didn't seem to have a key—and was greeted with an embrace. They sat down in the living room, and, as far as Wash could see, they were playing chess and eating something out of small bowls.

"Saturday night," Mal said (as Wash would have known if the resolution were high enough to read lips). "Guess I'd better be goin', read over my sermon and all."

"Mal," Simon said, putting his hand over Mal's. "Stay here. Please. I'm…I know you don't want to have sex because tomorrow's Sunday. But I like it when you sleep here. I can set the alarm clock early."

Wash drew on his knowledge of the ancient hermetic literature of Earth-that-Was. "These are not the droids you're looking for," he muttered, and put down the laser binocs without triggering the photographic feature. He started the mule and grinned as he pondered his next move in the now-single Case.

"Guess I'm pretty tired at that," Mal said. He went into the bedroom, took off his shirt and pants, and sashed one of Simon's houserobes (the only things that would fit him) around his waist. {{Huh. I guess 'cause I went down this path I ended up wearin' a dress after all.}}

Simon came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair. He wore a pair of red plaid pajamas that, as his lopsided grin acknowledged, were real passion-killers. (He kept them because they'd been a gift from River when she was eleven; she still liked brilliant colors.)

Mal looked down—it was less distressing than looking at the pajamas—and focused on Simon's feet, pale against the black velvet straps of his straw slippers. "You have nice feet," he said. "Elegant…"

"Thank you," Simon said, and sat down on the edge of the mattress. He picked up one of Mal's squarish feet and set it carefully on his own thigh. Then he pressed a few of the principal points and switched to the other foot. "Feels good," Mal said. "Not in a sexed-up way, but good." He reached back for the lamp on his side of the bed and turned it off. He lay back, fluffed the pillow beneath his neck, and wondered what was going to happen next.

Simon fussed around with the alarm clock a little, balancing extra sleep against hodgeberry pancakes for breakfast. Then he ruffled Mal's hair, planted his hand there, curled up with his head on Mal's shoulder, and fell instantly asleep.

It took Mal much longer to fall asleep, lying in a strange bed in the dark waiting for an opportune moment to extricate his Simon-filled arm and wondering what the hell he was doing.

19\. _Soul Food Served Here_  
The timer on the rice cooker pinged. Simon hissed through his teeth. He could never get everything finished at the right time, although neither had he ever managed the rain of fiery destruction upon the kitchen that Mal achieved in his first meal preparation endeavors.

Simon turned down the flame under the beef and asparagus in oyster sauce, and turned up the flame on the miso soup so he could tip in the little steel bowls of tofu, scallions, mushroom, and beaten egg.

He carried the dishes in to the dining room. Mal poured Simon a glass of wine and opened a bottle of mineral water for himself. (The expression on Mal's face as he sipped a heart-healthy glass of seventy-five-credit-a-bottle Chateau Mouton-Rothschild de Beaumonde—like a very small cat confronting a very large heartworm pill—had deterred repetition of the experiment. Anyway Simon could sympathize with a lack of interest in remembering past occasions of getting drunk and acting stupid.)

Mal set his jaw, and his eyes flashed with the cold fire that Simon found both irritating and arousing. "Why don't you ask the blessing tonight, Simon?" Mal asked.

"All right," Simon said, and dipped his head and laced his fingers. "Creator," {{if you exist}} "Thank you for the potential in our lives and for the blessings—material, emotional, and spiritual—that we have received. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful and happy and free. May all beings awaken to the light of their true natures."

{{Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, amen}} Mal thought, and picked up his soup spoon.

"I'm heading back out to the hospital after dinner," Simon said. "One of the cases today…it didn't go well. I think we're going to have to open her up again. Would you like to come along with me? Or, you know, in another cab five minutes behind. Because she went to the Cathedral, when she was on her feet. And I think it would mean a lot to her family if you prayed with them."

Mal nodded. "I'd like that."

20\. _Every Saint Has a Past. Every Sinner Has a Future._  
Wash hacked into the Quartz Cathedral server and sent a message to every e-mail address: "Flee, all is discovered," then sat back and waited to see what happened.

"Hey, can I use your Cortex box?" Mal asked, purely as a formality. Simon said, "Of course" and went back to loading the dishes into the dishwasher.

Mal sat back as if a punch had collapsed his ribs. Then he leaned forward again, thinking {{Here I stand. I can do no other.}} and messaged back, "Hey, buddy? Screw you and the mule you rode in on."

Things were awfully quiet at the office the next day, what with a number of individuals holding various ranks in the organization failing to turn up for work. A few of them, when waved-up, stammered unconvincing excuses, but most of them were unavailable for comment.

Although he failed to mention the "So long, sucker" scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror at home, Mal did mention that Saffron Faye was nowhere to be found, that her jewelry and clothing had been moved out en masse, and the police had not found any signs of foul play. Or at least, any sign of foul play as recognized by the Missing Persons Bureau.

Jayne Cobb was another employees who could not be reached, although on inspection his apartment, too, was empty. A number of the church's bank accounts, including several whose existence had been unknown to Mal, were emptied flat.

"Can you have the Holy Ghost strike 'em dead?" asked Kaylee hopefully.

"Don't think we're on smitin' terms anymore, Kaylee," Mal said.

During moments of intense lamentation, wailing, and circular finger-pointing, a corticast crew arrived. "Reverend Reynolds! A reliable source close to the investigation informs us that there have been widespread defections in the ranks at the Crystal Cathedral!"

"Fuck off, Badger," Mal said. He was going to call Security, but the ranks were severely depleted, so he jerked his chin to indicate that Kaylee should take one of the muckraker's arms and Zoe should take the other and escort or, preferably, haul him out.

A little later, caution thrown to the wind, Wash and Zoe sat in the Crystal Spa consuming Knickerbocker Glories when they saw a familiar face on the giant Cortex screens scattered throughout the room. Mal had granted an exclusive interview to an obscure religious broadcaster.

"Speakin' now to all my prayer partners," Mal said. "You may have heard some rumors about what’s been happenin' at the Cathedral," he said. "Now, in addition to my own private sins and failings, which I have asked the Lord's forgiveness for, I realize I've been guilty of bad stewardship. Jesus called me to feed his flock, and I left 'em hungry. Left 'em where the wolves could get at 'em. I ask your forgiveness now, and I know I'll answer for it when I stand before my Judge. But what I can do to make it right in this lifetime, is to step down and leave the job to someone who can do it better. Reverend Zoe Alleyne-Tillson will be taking over as Pastor. Starting…well, now. And as I depart, I ask for your pardon, and I ask you to keep me in your hearts and in your prayers."

"Quaint!" Wash said.

"Gorram!" Zoe said. She started to rise from the booth.

"At least finish your ice cream! God will still be there in ten minutes!" Wash said, although it did occur to him that if she didn't, he could throw himself on it like a grenade.

"Yeah, well, maybe my job won't," she said, grabbing her leather shoulder bag and racing toward the sanctuary. "He can turn and twist like a whirligig in a hurricane, sometimes."

21\. _Sometimes You Have To Rock The Boat To Still The Storm_

Simon looked at the Cortex screen, tapping his sterling-silver stylus nervously against the edge of the desk. That was a pretty good job at Marbury Medical Complex on Bellerophon. Simon had been to Bellerophon several times, and it seemed like a nice enough planet: fine shops and restaurants, cultural institutions, good weather except for the rainy season. But, as Simon reminded himself, that was four months a year.

He was pretty sure that if he applied for the job, he'd get it. The pay was good enough so he could afford a two-bedroom apartment, although perhaps not in the most fashionable neighborhood. That way, if once he found River, she wanted to live with him instead of going home to Osiris, there'd be plenty of room for her. There was a good Ph.D. program at the University of Bellerophon, or a conservatory if that's what she preferred. And if she wanted to go back to Osiris, or live in a dormitory on Bellerophon, then the second bedroom could be a home office.

Simon wasn't sure about opening that can of worms, though. Because Bellerophon had 82 Reconstituted Episcopal Federation of Churches parishes. The REFC had a policy of ordaining openly gay people without requiring them to pledge celibacy. However, the REFC did have a strong preference in favor of married clergy.

 _I'm not asking any miracle.  
It can be done. It can be done.  
I know a preacher who will grow lyrical,  
And make us one, and make us one_ (George & Ira Gershwin, "My One and Only")

 _There is only one bed. There is only one prayer.  
And I wait every night for your step on the stair._ (Leonard Cohen, "Tonight Will Be Fine")


End file.
